By GretchenRubin
Happiness interview: Zac Bissonnette.
I met personal finance expert Zac Bissonnette when we were on a panel together, and I was impressed by his command of the research and statistics related to working, debt, higher education costs, and money -- particularly because he was still in college! He's now entering his senior year at the University of Massachusetts.
His new book, Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching Off My Parents, just came out.
The relationship between money and happiness is one of the most complex, and most emotionally charged, topics within the large subject of happiness, so I was very interested to hear what Zac had to say.
Gretchen: Is there a happiness mantra or motto that... More...
By Dave Navarro
When you decide to get serious about growing your business (focusing on a higher price point, doubling sales or “adding a zero” to the end of your income, for example), the first thing you notice is that you slam up hard against the forces of insecurity, self-doubt and limiting beliefs.
Sometimes these forces cause you to run the other way and abandon your plans, but more often than not they just cause you to stand still, doing nothing and generally feeling terrible about yourself.
I can relate. I’ve had to push past a whole lot of “stuff” over the last 18 months to get where I am, and I’m slamming up against a lot more resistance as I make plans to “add a zero” to my sales over then next 12 months.
Part of me says “Face... More...
A guest post by Ross Hudgens for Pro Blogger
Making money as a freelance content writer isn’t easy. If you aren’t running your own blog or website, turning content into cash can be a difficult thing. But there’s opportunity out there – you just have to try a little harder than normal to find it.
One of the best places to look is the Problogger job board. Here, potential employers are looking for people like you – writers serious about their craft, with a strong content-creation skillset that often develops from reading a website like this.
Because of these potential employer’s high standards for Problogger readers, this won’t be the kind of cheap, outsourced content creation you’ll have to scrap up pennies and quarters from – it’ll be real, well-paid writing gigs with... More...
By Alison Kerr
Don’t leave bare soil in your garden when you could plant a cover crop instead. Here’s why and how.
1. A cover crop is a short-term planting which is used to protect and/or improve your soil rather than for food.
2. Plant your cover crop in the fall rather than leaving bare soil in your vegetable beds.
Alternatively you can mulch with compost.
3. Seeds you can plant for cover cropping include: hairy vetch, common vetch, winter rye, buckwheat, oats, clovers, alfalfa, soybeans and favas.
4. Reasons you want to plant cover include: protecting your soil from erosion; breaking up your soil; adding nitrogen to your soil; and making phosphates available for... More...
By Jules Clancy
Following on from last weeks facts about wheat flour, I wanted to explore the world of flours that are based on anything but wheat. And what a world it is.
I also wanted to experiment with baking with different flours and have come up with a wonderfully simple 5 ingredient peanut butter brownie. A brownie that totally lives up to its name and delivers on the key brownie strengths of moist, chocolately goodness. Paired with the fact that it’s gluten and dairy free, we’re talking win-win.
facts about non-wheat flours
rice flour
With a protein content of 7.5%, rice flour is probably the closest nutritionally to wheat flour. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the only ‘wheat free’ product in my former employers range... More...
By Karol Gadja
If you’re interested in what it takes to launch a product successfully or just want to get behind the scenes of my own product launches then this is for you.
Launching a product is fun, it’s exhilarating, but it can be stressful. Unless you do it my way. ;)
Over the past 10 years I’ve done a lot of product launches. This year I’ve done 3. How To Live Anywhere (twice) and, most recently, my Manifesto: The American Dream Is Dead (Long Live The American Dream!).
You might think, “Wait, your Manifesto is a free download, how is that even a product launch?”
The truth is I spent more time orchestrating or thinking about how to orchestrate the launch of the Manifesto than I did on How To Live Anywhere. From a revenue standpoint... More...
By Abubakar Jamil
Have you ever felt like being a football?
Well, as weird as it might seem, I’m feeling like one these days.
I feel as if I am a football and 22 players (11 from each side), are all running after me, trying to take hold of me, kicking me in all directions in their unrelenting effort to throw me into the goal area of the opposite team.
That is how life becomes sometimes, and with all your planning and all your efforts to live a controlled and planned life, you simply are unable to do just that.
I used the word “events”—like your father being extremely sick all of a sudden, your child having trouble with his health, your wife expecting another baby soon and needing your attention, your business going down the drain due to no fault of your own, and stuff like that—stuff... More...
By Redneck Mommy
Every once in a while I am sitting alone in the quiet of my house and I flashback to when I was nineteen and stupid and let myself be convinced to eat the worm out of a really bad bottle of tequila for my friends’ amusement at a house party. I’d like to say I had the good sense to only pretend to swallow the fermented insect, but the memory of it’s rubbery texture haunts my tongue to this day.
What makes this memory even more spectacularly hideous is I’m fairly convinced the worm was found out back in my friend’s garden and placed in the tequila bottle earlier that night by the hyena’s I called friends. They were just waiting for someone dumb enough to choke it back.
This little memory only proves what my big brother Stretch has always known.... More...
By Brett & Kate McKay
I thought this quiz would be fun as guys are heading back to school and moving in with old and new roommates. Are you the kind of roommate that’s “too good to be true” or “should you be a hermit?” Find out with this quiz from the 1946 issue of Varsity Magazine before your roommates start leaving passive aggressive notes for you on the fridge. And quit playing that phonograph all the dang time!Related posts:Look What Happens When You Dress As Smart As You Are: Vintage Images From True Magazine Heading Out on Your Own Manvotional: Robert Service’s “The Quitter” The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup: Man Cookbook Edition The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup: Indiana Jones IV Trailer Edition ... More...
By Arvind Devalia
Have you ever wondered just how significant your life is in the great scheme of things?
And how would the world be any different if you were not in it?
Our entire life is based on our sense of who we are and the identity vested in us by society and more importantly by us.
Wherever we are or whatever we do, we tend to go around seeking significance.
We want to be famous, well known, good looking, raved about, have a massive following in social media and so on. You get my point.
Yet in the big scheme of things, you and I just don’t matter. In years to come, we will just be dust or just ashes, as it will be in my case.
Gone. No more. History.
In fact, for most of us we will not even be history, in the... More...
By Trent Hamm
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. 401(k) profit sharing
2. Online job application tips
3. Illness and challenges
4. College freshman advice
5. Mortgage decisions
6. Annuities for retirement?
7. Refinancing questions
8. Universal life policies
9. Using self-help advice
10. Getting started with credit
Two readers this past week wrote to me asking if I would detail what I would like to have in our dream house. I’d like a five bedroom house (one for the parents, one for each child, one for guests) – we currently have four. I would like a larger kitchen than we have... More...
By Ethan
You may have a slick, new dishwasher with all the features but it won’t matter unless you know how to make it work for you. There are a couple things you can do to improve your dishwasher efficiency and best of all, they only take a few moments to accomplish.
Dishwasher Filter
Dishwashers have a filter to keep objects and large food particles from entering the pump. Many new dishwashers have self-cleaning filters but even some of the latest and greatest still have manual clean filters. Take a moment to check your filter. Most gunk is easily removed by rinsing the filter in water. For calcium deposits, you may need a soft scrub-brush.
Water Temperature
Hot water is great for activating and dissolving dishwasher detergent. It’s also good for removing grease and leaving... More...
By Barrie Davenport
“Blessed are those who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God’s best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one’s self, and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.” ~Thomas Hughes
Our old friends are like comfortable blue jeans. They are worn in, reliable, non-binding, cozy, patched in places, but still a perfect fit. We’ve had them so long, they are like second skin.
Old friendships are worth tending, nurturing and growing because these are the people who love us and see the best in us in spite of our flaws. Over the course of a lifetime, you may have a handful of really deep and intimate friendships. Sometimes these few friendships are enough. They are so comfortable that the... More...
By Audrey Scott
As we look out the window of our sublet in Berlin today, leaves are changing colors, temperatures are dropping, and intermittent rain storms are battling with a sun that struggles to peek through the clouds. No doubt about it: summer is fading away in the northern hemisphere.
So we offer a suggestion on how to hold on to the taste and freshness of summer: Vietnamese summer rolls. Good thing is, they’re easier to make than you think.
Have you ever tried summer rolls (think unfried spring rolls) at a Vietnamese restaurant and loved them, but figured they would just be too difficult to make at home?
Well, they aren’t. Heck, we even made them in the Czech countryside.
We’ve taught several of our friends how to make them and figured we’d... More...
By Francisco
IGN reports:
“As a producer in the entertainment industry, Jim Cameron’s comments on VanityFair.com are very disappointing to me and the team that made Piranha 3D. Mr. Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own. It is amazing that in the movie-making process – which is certainly a team sport – that Cameron consistently celebrates himself out as though he is a team of one. His comments are ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught up in serving his ego and his rhetoric.
Jim, are you kidding or what? First of all, let’s start by you accepting the fact that you were the original director of Piranha 2 and... More...
A guest post by Stefanie Flaxman for Write to Done
Everyone wants to be Batman.
He’s cool and edgy, but has benevolent intentions—and the man gets results.
Luckily for you, it’s easy to adopt Batman’s intriguing qualities to perfect your writing and make others believe that you rock as hard as the Caped Crusader.
Whether you’re writing for yourself (a blog, a novel, a business document, etc.) or a client, mistakes aren’t going to cut it. Your text has to be poignant, useful, and error-free.
Here are three aspects of the Batman persona that you can apply to your proofreading habits.
Costume – The importance of writing drafts
When speaking in front of an audience, it is said that the crowd forms 70% of their opinions on how you look, 20% on how you sound,... More...
By Trent Hamm
In my recent post about cultivating your own knowledge for fun and profit, I mentioned that you should hit yard sales, consignment shops, estate sales, and so forth as a way to put your knowledge to work for you and take advantage of underpriced items. A few commenters thought that this was unethical, so I thought I’d look at that particular point a bit more deeply.
I’ll start off by giving you a specific example of a situation where I did this in the past. As a teenager, I collected Magic: the Gathering cards (I still play with my wife using a handful of remaining cards). I had a very good idea of what some of the valuable ones were, including a few that sold for hundreds of dollars and a good number that could net $20 or more apiece.
In 2002 or 2003 (I’m... More...
By Satish
Often time we get a lot of email in the last minute before going to a meeting or exam! But we are unsure if its just another autoresponder mail or a genuinely urgent as well as important.
Check above video – its a very good animated video explaining Priority Inbox neatly.
To solve this problem, Google has introduced a new feature called Priority Inbox. This is a separate section in your email and will automatically separate your important mails, based on which email you read and reply to.
And ofcourse it has some filters to manually mark someone’s email as important or as unimportant.
And Like most things, Priority Inbox isn’t perfect, so it needs your help to get more experience in knowing what is important... More...
By Thursday Bram
An apartment lease is a contract just like any other: there is no one set contract that you have to always adhere to if you want to rent an apartment. As long as the landlord is willing, you can negotiate the terms and make sure that you get the best deal possible.
It’s significantly easier to negotiate if you know at least a little about what is happening with local rentals: if you’re living in an area where there just aren’t a lot of apartments available right now, you can negotiate yourself right out of an apartment if you’re not careful. But if you know a landlord is having difficulty keeping all of his apartments full, you’ll be aware of opportunities to get the most out of the deal.
Leases Are... More...
A guest post by Farnoosh for Virgin Blogger Notes
Call me crazy but I think Personality is seriously under-represented around here. Personality is the light, unpopular and untouched side dish when served next to the other big players at the Self-Improvement Feast such as Will Power, Motivation, Communication Skills, Pursuit of Happiness, Discovering your Passion, Developing Zen Habits, and Time Management. Personality seems to be no more than a label – shy, outgoing, cheerful, ambitious, risk-taker or compassionate – a dozen or so generic descriptors of how one unique fabulous human being differs from another. You see, Personality has not been getting nearly enough of the spotlight in the world of blog headlines. Today we will put it up on the stage, analyze it from... More...
By Fred
Do you know what the coolest thing is about blogging? It’s the interesting connections you make with people that live down the street or across the country. For example, Kim met one of the home improvement blogging giants–Tim Carter from Ask the Builder– earlier this month at a Delta Faucet PR Event. And earlier this year she had the opportunity to meet the entire Tigressa Carpet Design Team down in Atlanta Georgia at their kick-off event.
Sometimes, though, the connections are more personal. We hear from do-it-yourselfers all over the country (and even internationally) who are tackling projects just like ours. They’re usually working in their own homes and facing similar challenges as we did on a project.
For instance, at least twice a month we get... More...
By Angela Artemis
“My husband talks to me about his writing all the time, especially when I’m trying to watch TV – it drives me crazy! You know he reads and takes notes? Do you do that to?” I can’t help but laugh as my beautician uses me as her guinea pig to try to make sense of her “writer” husband. She keeps talking without taking a breath, or allowing me to answer her question.
“What do you write about?” she asks combing my wet hair onto my forehead to trim my bangs.
“About learning to develop your intuition and to use it to-”
“To get the lottery numbers?” I see her light up over this as I watch her refection in the mirror.
“Well, not exactly, ” I say.... More...
By Cupcake Lady
The Power of 3! Are you a numbers person? How about a list making person? I am actually both.
It’s quite interesting how the number 3 is very important. During Church last weekend, our Youth Pastor spoke about numbers in the Bible. I won’t go into a long talk about it (maybe another post), but I do find it intriguing.
The number 3 is the first of four perfect numbers, meaning Divine. Number 3 denotes Divine Perfection. Many times during Scripture in the Bible, different things or people are mentioned 3 times. You can read more about the number 3 and other numbers in the Bible, here.
I have been a Mom for 18 1/2 years now, and I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times that I have tried a workable chore list for my family. I have tried... More...
By Cupcake Lady
A little while back I told you about my new gig, The Family Dish. If you are looking for great recipes from great brands, they have what you need!
I recently shared this recipe for Fried Potatoes over on The Family Dish. We usually have breakfast-for-dinner, at least a couple times per month. It’s not only an easy meal to get on the table quickly, but also a very frugal meal. Even though I would be happy with just the Fried Potatoes for dinner, the rest of my gang probably wouldn’t. Sometimes I add some bacon and fruit, and call it a meal, but more often I also add eggs to the potatoes.
When we have baked potatoes, I usually make extras to use for breakfast or even a dinner meal. During the Summer months, I use my Crockpot to cook the potatoes, it not only... More...
